By Alison Ho Yan Lee
April 4, 2021 | PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA
Alison Ho Yan Lee serves as a Global Mission Fellow at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in Cambodia. The organization’s regional mission is to strengthen strategic interventions into violent conflicts with the overall aim of fostering sustainable peace in Asia. When she wrote this in early March, Alison and her team were supporting the work of various stakeholders on resolving the political crisis in Myanmar arising after the February 1st coup. Alison, from Hong Kong, SAR, was commissioned by Global Ministries in 2019.
“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Jesus asked Mary, who stood at the tomb, weeping. In desperate sadness Mary was missing Jesus, the Rabboni she had followed for years, and the Lord who just marched into the City of David not long ago. But now everything had gone. Even his body did not remain.
Jesus stood with Mary. He saw through her sadness and feeling of loss. “Woman, why are you weeping?” The first thing he gave to Mary was his accompaniment, when he showed up. Jesus stood with Mary in her grief and loss. “Whom are you seeking?” He identified with her needs as something, someone important to her was violently destroyed and taken away.
While Mary was still desperate about who took her Lord’s body away, Jesus called her name, “Mary.” Our God is usually the one who takes the first step to come to us when we are lost in the chaos. God sees us and calls us. God finds us amid our troubles, long before we are able to find God and call out to God. God does not overlook our problems and abandon us in a muddle.
